Shanghai'd

Looking across the river to Pudong
















Dancing in the Park

Interesting above-ground wiring matrix

Our first full day in Shanghai took us to the Shanghai Museum in the People's Park. Though relatively small, it is a spendid national museum. (The real National Museum in Beijing is closed for renovations). The exhibits are very well done, beautifully laid out, much high tech, much English. The organization is by type of artifact--painting, calligraphy, bronze, ceramics, coins, minorities' artifacts, furniture--and then chronological within type of artefact, many very ancient. It's in fact a national museum because Shanghai really has little history. 150 years ago it was a mere fishing village. We had lunch at the museum and then walked to the Bund to see a travel agent. The walk was a bit inadvertent. Igt was rush-hour, and no taxis were interested in a short haul. Much of the Bund was under conxstruction of one sort or another, but we'll get back tomorrow.

Much of the evening was spent in revising the website and this new blog site. Hopefully, I'll upload photos tomorrow or the next day.

I thought it would be cool to get take-out Chinese while in China, so I wandered downstairs to the adjacent shopping mall and found a Chinese fast-food place (right next to the KFC). Of course, they appeared surprised to see a Euro-Am, but promptly produced an English menu and someone to explain things to me. I got spareribs, rice, steamed vegetables, and a soup, all for 18 yuan.

Randoms: near the Bund, a great photo of 4-story bamboo scaffolding on an older building, coils of disused streetcar cable hanging in the air, the skyscrapers of Pudong in the background. Old and new Shanghai. Hope it turns out!